Matthew turned 17 months old last week and, oh my gosh, I’m going to have a one-and-a-half-year-old in less than a month!!!
He has become quite the snuggler lately (I’m telling you, he somehow knows another baby is coming) and he all but attacks us with kisses throughout the day. Opens his mouth wide, plows his face into our cheeks, and plants a series of big, juicy, slobbery baby kisses all over. It has to be the best thing ever.
Additionally, Matthew has been picking up new baby signs and words every day! The video below shows off many of them, but I think I forgot to ask him about signs for “open” and “eat”, and I also forgot to ask him to say “eye” and “wow”. His little voice is too stinkin’ cute.
As usual, there is so much to share and not enough time to put it all into words. All I can say is, I am so blessed to raise this little guy. His squishy cheeks, bulging belly, and infectious smile are all too much. I love him to pieces. Every night I pray that God will protect him and keep him safe until I can hold him in my arms again the next day. I thank God for blessing us with him, and I pray that He will give us grace and wisdom so we can raise him in the way he should go.
He started taking his first steps about 2 weeks ago. It seemed like he got stuck at only 3-4 steps for several days before crashing down to the ground. Then, literally overnight, he started taking 8-10 steps at a time and, before we knew it, he was setting new records every day.
The latest record is 32 consecutive steps.
Matthew will now willingly let go of surfaces, wave to every person and toy in the room, stick out his tongue, take a few steps, wave again to his adoring fans, and take a dozen or more steps before slowly squatting to the floor and taking a break.
What a funny kid.
Way to go, baby boy! You’ll be running before we know it.
I love my baby. He is absolutely the cutest, sweetest, most loveable baby I ever laid eyes on. But the stinker doesn’t sleep. Ever since he learned to roll over both ways at 4 months of age, his sleeping power has gone down the toilet because he would roll around and either A) wake himself up from the movement or B) aggressively sleep-roll into the slats of his crib and whack his head on them, thus waking himself up in a tizzy.
If you’ve been following the last several months, you know we tried The No Cry Sleep Solution, and it helped tremendously with extending Matthew’s naps from 20 minutes on-the-dot to 60 or even 90 minutes on a regular basis. Amazing stuff, those daytime naps. But the punk just wouldn’t sleep at night. He had trouble falling asleep. He had trouble staying asleep.
I was still nursing him and the hourly trips from my bed to his room to bribe him back to sleep were just killing me. So we started co-sleeping. He slept better (like, two hours at a time instead of only one) and I didn’t have to get out of bed in the middle of the night which, let me tell you, made a world of difference. Even though I still wasn’t really sleeping for about seven months, the fact that I didn’t have to get out of bed when the world slept was a life saver. It made me feel like a new woman. Seriously. I highly recommend it. I also loved being able to have him snuggle next to me (even if he did kick me in the head and stomach on a regular basis) and see him sit up in the morning as he arose to greet us with a rousing round of “ba ba ba” and then several minutes of the most savory snuggles you’ve ever had, followed by some early morning rough housing. I will always cherish those sweet, sweet moments.
Fast forward to mid-August of this year. We had moved to a new city and I was starting a new job where I’d be working full-time. We were only a few weeks away from an anniversary trip that would take us away from our baby for three whole nights, which meant the grandparents would be watching him and, holy schomly, there’s no way I can leave them with a baby who wakes up every 45 minutes. They will die. Or kill us. It will be Hunger Games…except it will be Tired Games instead, and the “winner” gets the baby who doesn’t sleep. There’s no way I could do that to them.
That’s when we decided it was time to buckle down on ol’ Matthew’s sleep. Enough was enough. We needed our rest. And, more importantly, we needed to get him ready for our weekend away.
Let me pause and tell you that I absolutely cannot stand baby crying. My husband can attest. Toddler tantrums? Bring ‘em on. I can handle those. They don’t phase me. But helpless babies? No way. There are times I have felt like a terrible mother because I absolutely cannot stand the sound of my baby’s cry. In those moments of newborn screaming and thrashing brought on by that mysterious thing we call “colic”, I tended to him out of love, but mostly out of a bit of masochism and a lot of guilt because I felt like I would be a terrible mother if I didn’t. I just want you to know where I’m coming from here. Baby screams kill me.
So when my husband suggested that we let our twelve-month-old “cry it out”, I hit him with, “So what do you mean by that exactly?” I’ve done enough research to know that “cry it out” can mean a host of things. It doesn’t always mean just letting them cry and scream and choke and vomit (yes, that happens) until they are so exhausted and traumatized that they fall asleep. There are different versions, to say the least. I knew Matthew was capable of performing some form of “self-soothing” because he could now fall asleep in the car without us having to sing his favorite song (Wheels on the Bus, in case you’re curious) and he would often fall asleep back there without us even knowing it. That’s a great start. We talked about it and, even though we didn’t really come up with a firm plan, we decided that sooner or later we would get to the point where we would let him cry himself to sleep in his crib. But that’s not where we started.
Ready for the good stuff? Here’s what we did (keep in mind he was waking every 45 minutes all night, every night at this point).
-For the first few nights, we weaned him from his night feedings as he slept on the floor in an enclosed space next to my side of the bed (the child despises being put in a Pack ‘n Play). Exhausted, desperate parents know that you will do anything to get your baby back to sleep in the middle of the night, so Matthew had gotten used to being nursed back to sleep most of the times that he awoke. Sometimes he’d just suck for comfort, but other times he’d really eat and eat, so I knew he was hungry. But a twelve-month-old (even our Buddha belly baby) has got to be able to make it all night without eating. So for those first few nights, I nursed him right before bed and got him to sleep as usual (his preferred method is for us to pat him on his back while his Sleep Sheep plays white noise). The next time he woke, myself or Brian would go to him and offer him his water bottle. Sometimes he’d take it, but most times he’d push it away and keep crying. After that, we’d get him back to sleep in the usual way, just without nursing. It was hard, and there were a few times where I gave in and nursed him because I just couldn’t stand to be up for another 20 minutes trying to get him back to sleep. Remember, brand new full-time job? Doesn’t mix well with ultra-sleep deprivation. He continued to wake about every 45-60 minutes for those first few nights, and we were up longer with each time he awoke because we were changing our methods for getting him back to sleep. Killer. Absolutely killer.
-After he was able to make it through the whole night sleeping by our bed and receiving nothing but water in the middle of the night, we moved him into his crib. This was mostly because that’s how long it took us to get his crib set up in our new home. We continued to offer him water when he awoke and patted him back to sleep along with his white noise.
-After a night or two of him being in his crib and surviving the entire night without drinking any water (still awaking every 45-60 minutes, mind you), we knew it was time. Time to let him cry it out.
-A week after we began this whole thing, Matthew was ready for the big boy treatment. I put him to sleep as usual and then when he awoke after 45 minutes or so, Brian went in there and offered him some water, which he refused. He patted him a little bit to help him calm down, refreshed his white noise, and then left the room. Moment of truth. Matthew screamed and screamed and SCREAMED. He screamed for at least an hour straight. It was gut wrenching. I think Brian went in there a time or two to comfort him but that, of course, only made things worse. After what seemed like an eternity, the screaming stopped and we looked at each other in disbelief. Is he okay? we asked. Brian walked into Matthew’s room only to find him still standing, his hands and face leaning on the railing with his eyes closed and voice quiet. Brian thinks he was half asleep. But then he noticed Brian was in the room and, of course, started screaming again. I think Brian patted him back to sleep, and then Matthew proceeded to sleep three hours straight. Three hours? That’s amazing! Matthew only woke up two more times after that before he was up for the day…and that was night one.
-The next few nights are a blur to both Brian and myself. He, being the immensely thoughtful husband that he is, insisted that he be responsible for dealing with our baby’s middle-of-the-night shenanigans during that work week so that I could get some rest and be able to function well during week two of my new job. So thankful for him. From what I understand, night number two was better than the first. Matthew still awoke within an hour after going down, but he got himself back to sleep more quickly after a simple check-in and pat on the back from dad. I think “more quickly” means like a half an hour. Like I said, it’s all a blur. Matthew then proceeded to only wake up one time that night. Woah. And then on night number three, he didn’t wake at all (or at least didn’t cry) between 9pm and 5am. And then he went back to sleep for another hour after being given some water. Double woah.
-The next couple nights after that, Matthew has slept for about seven to eight hours without making a peep. That is incomprehensible to me. I still don’t really understand how it happened. But it did. With our luck, he’s going to make us think he’s established this pattern of great sleeping and then go ahead and change things up on us…as babies do.
You know, it’s easier for me to do things for others than it is for myself, especially when it comes to eliminating inconveniences. Even though waking up every 45 minutes EVERY NIGHT is a total drag, I can deal with it because it’s my baby. But having to make my in-laws suffer just so my husband and I can go on an anniversary trip? It’s just not fair to them. Even though Matthew’s sleep was absolutely horrendous, I still don’t think I would have been motivated to make a change if we hadn’t had this trip planned. You should have seen how much effort Brian had to put forth to talk me into agreeing to this trip. Three nights. THREE NIGHTS! That September deadline really helped motivate me, so I want to say “thank you” to my in-laws for agreeing to watch our night-screaming baby. If it weren’t for their enthusiasm for their sweet grandbaby, I don’t think I would have been able to go through with this whole cry it out thing. But I wanted to spare them from the agony that came with the night shift, and for that I am grateful.
If you’re a parent of baby who doesn’t sleep well at night, please don’t take my story as a recipe for your own situation. I don’t know where you and your baby are at with the whole sleep thing, and whatever you do really needs to be something that fits with where you are as a family. I don’t think crying it out would have worked for us a few months ago because Matthew was still legitimately hungry in the middle of the night, and I am not willing to refuse to feed a hungry baby in the middle of the night, no matter what the “experts” say. We found a progression that worked for us and used our own judgment rather than following any particular method. As with anything baby-related, his pattern that he’s established will probably soon change and then we’ll have to figure out what to do with it from there.
But I’m proud of us.
I’m proud of our commitment, our teamwork, and our compassion for our baby as we helped usher him into a new phase of his life.
He’s a big kid now. He can put himself to sleep, sleep all night, and wake up happy.
Thank goodness for the small victories.
And a full night’s sleep.
{Update: It’s been a month and a half and our now-14-month-old is consistently sleeping 10-11 hours straight at night. Something clicked. And it stayed with him. Hooray!}
To call this past weekend a “whirlwind” would be an understatement.
As soon as my in-laws arrived in town Saturday morning, the loading of the truck began and it continued right up until mister Matthew’s 1st bday party.
It was a blast.
More birthday photos to come, but for now you can know we made it safe and sound to our next destination. Last night we unloaded our moving truck into a storage unit where most of our earthly possessions will live for a month or so. Today we return the truck and begin adjusting to the heat. I kind of forgot what 90 degrees feels like…at ten in the morning.
Last weekend we decided to take a day trip out to Channel Islands National Park. It’s something we’ve been wanting to do ever since we moved to Santa Barbara last year but we just haven’t been able to make it happen, what with having a new baby and starting a new career and all.
We arrived at the harbor in Ventura with plenty of time to spare before the on-time departure of the 8am boat.
Once we boarded the boat and began our one-hour trip over to Santa Cruz Island (the largest island off the coast of California, by the way), we were accompanied by gloomy, overcast skies and gray, choppy water. Not awesome for me and my seasick tummy, but great for rocking and bouncing our traveling ten-month-old to sleep.
As we neared the end of our bumpy boat ride we were greeted by several pods of dolphins, and I managed to catch one on (digital) film!
After exiting the boat and orienting ourselves to the map of the island, we secured our little baby in the hiking backpack and headed off on a 7-mile round trip hike to Smugglers’ Cove. The beginning was pretty steep and, once it flattened out, the view was not the most exciting. Blah.
At some point during the first half of the hike, though, we were able to see Anacapa Island (which is actually comprised of 3 small islands). Pretty cool.
We made it to the junction we’d been looking for and then continued on our way down to Smugglers’ Cove.
Since our little one had fallen asleep while bouncing on his daddy’s back, we took advantage and enjoyed a few quiet moments eating our lunch on the shore of Santa Cruz Island.
We gave our legs a chance to realize just how sore they were and then headed back up the ridiculous hill we had descended on our way down to the cove (seriously, this hill was out-of-control steep). The clouds had finally started to part as the blue sky burst through to say hello, making the remainder of our hike so much more beautiful and scenic!
We passed through one of the island’s many campgrounds and gave Little Man a chance to stretch his legs and (unsuccessfully attempt to) eat some nature.
After we came back to the junction from the first half of our hike, we decided to take a connecting trail over to Cavern Point. Boy, are we glad we did. What a sight. Kind of reminds me of Big Sur, CA.
It’s so much harder to take self-pictures now that we are a family of three!
With only a half an hour or so until we had to return to the pier to line up for our boat, we wrapped up our 12-mile hike and were treated to another view of Anacapa Island.
We boarded the boat at 4pm and enjoyed a peaceful ride back to the mainland. We arrived an hour later and as my husband and I moaned and whined about how tired we were and how sore our legs and joints were going to be later that weekend, our little baby was like, Freedom!!! After being in that hiking pack for nearly the entire day, he was finally free. We let him crawl around on the grass for several minutes before packing up the car and heading home.
It was a long day of strenuous hiking (literally uphill both ways), but we are so glad we were able to make it out to the Channel Islands! What a fun day. Time to cross it off the bucket list!
I love being an occupational therapist and I love working with kids. It’s what I was created to do.
I recently began working with a new client — a five month old drug exposed baby who was removed from mother at birth and is now living in foster care with a wonderful caregiver. Oy, what a story. I met this baby for the first time this week and, let me tell you, this kid will melt the heart of even the most anti-baby person. Those big eyes, huge smile, tongue that sticks out and wiggles, and pudgy body that only wants to be held and cuddled all day long. Wow.
Though I can’t divulge identifying info about this kiddo, I will say that he is lucky. He is lucky because even though he didn’t stand a chance at a healthy birth or infancy because of his birth mother’s illegal and irresponsible behaviors, he has been placed with a foster mother who adores him and he is already receiving therapy services in order to give him the best start possible to his little life.
The part I love about being both a mom and a therapist for little babies is that I can really draw from my pool of experience that has accumulated as I have raised Matthew and learned how to be a parent to a fussy, screaming, demanding infant. They don’t teach you about white noise apps, bouncing on an exercise ball, and reflux-alleviating massage in grad school. That $100,000+ curriculum doesn’t tell you how to detect a baby food allergy or how to swaddle your little one so he can finally relax enough to go to sleep. You learn that in the middle of the night while a mini human is screaming in your face during Parenting 101.
I had such a blast working with this foster mom. I’m not sure if she’s ever raised a baby herself, and it was evident that she was searching for and open to all the help she could get with this little one whom she has so graciously and generously accepted into her life. It’s hard enough responding to my own little baby’s needs in the middle of the night. Can you imagine what it’s like being a middle-of-the-night parent for a screaming baby that’s not even yours, and who you have no idea how long will be a part of your life? Maybe he’ll be gone next week. Maybe he’ll be around for a year. Who knows.
I am so grateful for people like this foster mom. It makes me so excited to collaborate with her as I work with this baby because I know she loves him and is willing to put in the work to help him have the best chance in life.
Who knows what the future holds for this little guy. His life is filled with “what ifs”. What if he stays with his foster mom for a long time?What if he gets adopted? What if something goes wrong?What if he ends up being a musician or athlete or artist? What if he ends up doing drugs and following a path similar to his birth mom? Only God knows what’s in store for him.
I will pray and pray that he is set on the best path possible so that he can experience the potential that he has been given and, even if his birth mother wasn’t able to give him her best, hopefully someone else will.
I’ve mentioned before that I could listen to my little baby babble all day, every day. It is the sweetest sound I have ever heard and I’m pretty sure there will be babbling babies in heaven — they’ll be crawling circles, pulling to stand, and cruising around the majestic angels who sing hosanna for all of eternity.
See what I mean?
Melts my heart every single time. I want to remember this sound forever.
There have been so many things I’ve wanted to write about in the past week or so, but Matthew’s newly lengthened naptimes (which have become my times to write and create) have recently become overtaken by working on reports for my job. What’s going on 9 months before April and May that caused all these babies to be born then such that there all these annual reports due then for my 1, 2, and 3 year old kiddos? Haha. I’m getting paid to work during naptime, though, so I guess I don’t have too much to complain about!
A few quick things that I wanted to put down on (virtual) paper before I forget about them:
-Matthew is 7 1/2 months old and has discovered a new sound! Last Friday he and I were driving home from an errand and as we waited to make the last turn onto our street, he went something like this: ghhhhh…ghhhhh…guh-guh…a-guh…GA!…gagaguh…ga…ga…ga…guh-GA!
Hello, ga-ga!
-Matthew is learning how to put himself to sleep!!!!!!! I never thought I would see the day. He is NOT one of those babies you can just set down in the crib when he’s drowsy and then he’ll nicely drift off to lala land. He has ALWAYS, since day 1, required really intense bouncing, shushing, white noise, and patting on his back. Seriously, you might think we were abusing him with how hard we have to pat him on the back to help him calm and drift off. I’m pretty sure you could hear it around the block. But as we’ve been helping him learn how to sleep better (I don’t like the phrase “sleep training”), he is now starting to demonstrate the ability to make the transition from awake to asleep without physical assistance from us! i.e., no bouncing or patting. Wahoo! At least 4 times in the past week, I’ve sat there next to him as he’s laid in the bed, eyes fluttering as he stares at his hand and then slowly enters dreamworld. I know this is normal for many babies, but if you’ve ever had a baby who required such intense pre-sleep attention as Matthew, then you know how über exciting this is! Way to go, little buddy!!
-Matthew can roll a ball back and forth with us!…kind of. He has this little red webby “Oball” that rattles and makes it easy for his fingers to grab onto and now that he’s sitting up better, I decided to roll it to him one day while he was sitting just to see what he’d do. At first he chewed and chewed on the ball — of course. But after a few times of me showing him what to do, he started trying to return the ball to me! I’d roll it to him, he’d pick it up with one hand, look at me, then extend his arm in some direction (still working on that aim!) and let go of the ball so that it rolled away from him. Then I’d get the ball from wherever it rolled to and, slowly but surely, he’s becoming a little more consistent with aiming it forward rather than sideways or backwards. So fun! I think he could do it all day.
-In light of the previous point, Matthew is FINALLY developing some play skills! I was getting frustrated because I would see all these great ideas for what babies his age “like” to do such as shaking noisemakers and banging on surfaces to make noise and, well, Matthew didn’t think too highly of any of those things. His criteria is, Can I put it in my mouth and chew on it? If so, then it’s a good toy or game. So I finally busted out the $25 Babies R Us gift card that someone gave us as a baby shower gift and headed to the store during a break from work one day, DETERMINED to find one or two toys that he would like and that would force him to develop some play skills! I grabbed this one off the shelf, a toy that you can suction down to, say, a high chair tray, and it makes noise and lights up if he spins it. After a week of use, I can proudly say that he likes it and it really does stay in place. Now we’re getting somewhere! Hooray for play skills.
-The bottle is really, truly all done. Matthew has been over the bottle for several months now, but my loving husband has been persistent in his efforts to get the baby to drink something from the bottle while mommy is away at work all day, 3 days a week. After trying what feels like every bottle ever invented (I think 8-10 different types), we are giving up. We’re in this weird in-between time where he’s too young for a sippy cup (all he wants to do is chew on the spout anyway), too young for an open cup (though he can suckle some thick baby oatmeal from it if necessary), and is totally over the bottle. So he doesn’t really have a good container to drink milk from at this point. Which brings me to my next point…
-Yes, I am going to be one of those moms that publicly states that my baby is constipated! We have given a valiant effort to prevent this from happening given his limited ability to drink milk (or any fluids for that matter) from a source other than me, but it finally happened. He is a once to twice a day baby at this point (so different than when it was about 15 times a day as a newborn!!!), but now we are going on FOUR days without a full diaper. We are waiting for the prunes to kick in…and are also perpetually getting the bath ready for the moment of explosion…
[Okay, seriously, Matthew has been grunting and bearing down as I've been writing the above paragraph. We are now back from the changing table and, let's just say, he got the job done. Nice timing! I have never been so happy to see poop. ]
-Continuing on the “no bottle” vein of thought, I have concluded through various means that Matthew is a “low registration” sort of kid. This means that he needs much more intense sensory input in order to “feel” it and know and be comfortable with where his body is in space. This explains sooooo much! The INTENSITY!!! of bouncing, back patting, and white noise (must be on full volume right next to his head for it to actually help) needed to get him regulated and calm. The need to have his milk heated to very warm in order to accept it (at least for when he used to take a bottle). The fact that he will scratch himself until he bleeds on a regular basis (even when his fingernails are short), and doesn’t even notice. His ability to tolerate a wet or soiled diaper for a long time without fussing about it (sometimes, as a parent, you just get busy and forget to check their diaper, especially if they’re not fussing about it). His apparent ability to withstand extreme temperatures without being bothered by them (his body was constantly cold in the hospital and body temp was low so we had to add more blankets to the swaddle, but he didn’t fuss or mind at all). He LOVES when it’s windy and cold outside, which is so funny to see. His super intense need to put EVERYTHING in his mouth. I know, I know, that’s what babies do at this age, but even the Infant Times teacher noted that he is an extremely oral baby who really engages in a lot more oral exploration than many babies she’s seen in her 32 years of working with babies. And, lastly, his difficulty managing a bottle or pacifier. Think about it: wouldn’t it be difficult for you to know how to suck on a bottle or pacifier if you can’t really feel or sense what’s going on in your mouth? He was always incapable of keeping a pacifier in his mouth, as it would just fall out as if he never really noticed that it was there. And the bottle…well…we know how that story goes. In therapy, we would address this by giving increased input to the mouth and face prior to oral activity in order to “wake up” the mouth and get it ready to engage. We’ll see what works for Matthew, but at least now we can understand him and his needs a little better and help him get the input he needs to be happy and healthy!
-I think that’s all for now. This was longer than anticipated, but Matthew has been doing a nice job of entertaining himself and me with his ball play, toe sucking, and oh so cute smiles and babbles and spit bubbles. He is almost able to push all the way up to hands and knees, so it won’t be too long before he will defy any play space I set up to contain him in a small area (i.e., barricade of couch pillows)!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great week!
Matthew, you turned 7 months old today and I must say that we, your parents, are quite shocked at how you have somehow turned into a big boy overnight! I mean, seriously. You don’t mess around. I looked at you one day last week and thought to myself, You don’t look like a baby anymore!
I must say that this past month has by far been the most fun month with you! Now I know what people mean when they say that it only gets better as babies get older. If I can be honest, I never really believed people when they said that, since it seemed like you only screamed more and slept less with each passing month. Don’t get me wrong, you still do those things. Daddy knows that he is becoming more and more responsible for calming you when you scream endlessly, because Mommy just doesn’t have the nerves for it anymore. But you have developed such a hilarious personality in the past month that I can now truly see why people say that it’s all uphill from here.
You have continued to grow like a fat little weed, measuring in at the 49th percentile for height and the 85th!!!!! percentile for weight. Oh how we love your rolls!
1 month 7 months
Of course, part of your continued growth must be attributed to all the new baby foods that you have eaten this month. As noted in last month’s post, you had already been eating baby oatmeal for a couple weeks by the time you turned 6 months, but it wasn’t until that half a year mark that we introduced you to real life baby food. We started you off with peas, and you totally loved them. It took you a couple days to really figure out how to move all that mushy goodness from the spoon to the back of your mouth so that you could swallow it, but now you’re a pro. In addition to peas, you have also tried green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, avocado, applesauce, pears, and bananas.
Surprisingly, you are a veggie kid. I think you spent your first week and a half getting to know peas, carrots, and green beans, and then we introduced you to to pears. Everyone told us that their kids gobbled up pears when they were babies. Not you! You made a hilarious face that clearly indicated that you were dissatisfied with the stuff and that you would rather eat something green. Seriously?! To be fair, you have since made that face with most new foods that you try (even with sweet potatoes, which everyone also told us would be a slam dunk favorite), but you’re open to trying new foods and have never flat out refused them. The closest you have come to refusing a new food was when I tried to give you baby food chicken the other day. I slid the grainy stuff into your mouth and you kind of mushed it around and slowly squirted it out, letting it hang out on your lips and chin as if to say, “I won’t say ‘no’, but I won’t say ‘yes’ either.” After bravely trying the chicken for 2 days, it appeared that it was possibly hurting your tummy as you screamed in pain approximately 5 hours after each carniverous meal. So we said bye-bye to the baby meats and will try again at some unknown time in the future. You have continued to enjoy eating your baby oatmeal along with various fruits and veggies, and we have even begun to mix in fruit with your oatmeal in the morning. What better way to start off your day with a mixture of oatmeal, mama’s milk, and pears?
You have given up the bottle for all intents and purposes. Daddy barely even tries to give it to you anymore. Instead, he spoon feeds you breast milk with some oatmeal mixed in so that it’s easier to eat. He’s also teaching you how to drink the slightly thickened milk straight from the open cup. No time like the present, am I right? We continue to try to teach you to use a sippy cup, but you’d still rather chew on the rubbery spout than actually drink from it. I was able to get you to drink about a half an ounce of milk from it the other day, though, so that’s a start!
Although we have suspected that you’ve been suffering from pre-teething pain for several months now, you finally cut your first tooth just after you turned 6 months old. You really had to work for that one, and we had you taking baby Tylenol for it on a nightly basis just so that you could get some sleep. Then, all of a sudden, I noticed last week that you had a 2nd tooth. What? When did that get here?! God must have known that we suffered enough through that first tooth, so he just gave us the second one for free. So now you have two little teeth sitting there in the bottom of your mouth, ready to chomp away! Since you like to chew on things anyway, I went ahead and got you a little baby oral care kit so that we can start to get your gums used to being tended to on a daily basis. No more gummy smile for you!
Once your body had calmed down from teething and seemed to figure out how to digest baby food, we decided to begin Operation: Sleep! In case you’re wondering, Operation: Sleep is a project we have undertaken in an effort to help you (and, subsequently, us) sleep more. Our sleep strategies have come from a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, and we have found it to be a very helpful book that has allowed us to personalize our sleep plan based on some great suggestions in order to make gradual changes to your sleeping habits.
Our first task in Operation: Sleep was to log all your daytime and nighttime and sleeping hours, in addition to logging what the environment was like prior to those events, as well as how you fell asleep, how long you stayed asleep, how long you stayed awake, and how you fell back to sleep. We did our first log February 14th (nothing more romantic than working on sleep, eh?), and it showed that you slept much less than you should for your age within a 24-hour period. You napped 3 short naps for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes (rather than 2 long naps totaling 3-4 hours), and you slept 9 1/2 hours at night with 7 night wakings (as opposed to 10-11 hours at night), for a grand total of 11 hours and 45 minutes of sleep during a 24 hour period (whereas 6-month-old babies typically benefit most from 14-15 hours per 24 hour period).
This all helped us understand that, quite possibly, part of the reason that you have been having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep is because you were overtired. I’ve learned that “sleep begets sleep”, and so the better you nap, the better you sleep at night. And the better you sleep at night, the better you nap. When babies get overtired, their bodies secrete “stay awake” hormones to fight the tiredness (kind of like getting a second wind), and this makes sleepy time all the more a battle for you and for us. Aren’t you glad we figured this out? Without going into greater detail, we took a few steps to implement a sleep plan and then logged your sleep patterns again after 12 days (because we forgot to do it at the 10-day mark). The results? We are making progress. You are sleeping a greater number of hours throughout the day and night, and you are waking less and for shorter periods during the night. We still have a ways to go, but we are very happy with how well you have taken to some of the new sleep habits we have implemented. Mommy will have to write more about this once you get even better at sleeping.
Of course, after making all this progress in the sleep department, you had to go and learn a bunch of new motor skills, so your body decided that it didn’t need to sleep anymore, as evidenced by this very funny video I took of you the other day during what was supposed to be your nap time.
I should mention that today, on your seven month birthday, you took your longest nap ever…TWO AND A HALF HOURS! I know that’s normal for some babies, but woah! We are so proud.
Last week, seemingly overnight, you began sitting up on your own! Though you still topple at times, you are getting to be pretty good on your hindquarters, and you love being upright more often throughout the day!
As I mentioned earlier, your personality is really starting to show! You love to smile and will show off your wide-mouthed grin to anyone who so much as looks at you. You have the best laugh ever and your daddy and I love to make you cackle, especially when playing peek-a-boo.
You are strong as an ox, both in body and will. If you are determined to move in a particular direction, you WILL do it, no matter what is in your way, and you will cry and sometimes even scream if you can’t. The same is true for putting things in your mouth. If you want to chew on it, you will, no matter what it is or how difficult. This morning you decided you wanted to eat your Daddy’s ankle while you were on the floor next to his chair…so you did. You are determined to be left-handed (just like two of your grandparents) and really don’t like it when we try to make you grab things with your right hand because, dagnabit it!, that’s not how you want to do it. Often, when I change your diaper or try to put on your pants, you will see something out of the corner of your eye that you must grab IMMEDIATELY, and so you swiftly twist around so that you are almost on your belly while I still have a hold of your legs and, let me tell you, it is a workout to get you to your back again to finish the diapering or dressing. How are you stronger than me, you’re just a little baby?!!! I can already tell that we will have our hands full as you become more and more able to assert your will.
You have some very distinct likes and dislikes at this age. Actually, I take that back. You don’t like or dislike things. You either LOVE or you HATE them. You are kind of an all or nothing kid. For instance, you LOVE when we sing The Wheels on the Bus, and it will solve any problem. It will ease your pain, cure your loneliness, and help you fall asleep when you’re just too fussy to relax. You also LOVE reading Elmo’s Garden and Clifford Counts 1-2-3. If we open up either of those books (especially Elmo because it makes funny noises) and stand them up on the floor near you, you WILL find a way to flip yourself around so that you are propped up on your tummy with a clear view of the pages. It’s hilarious.
However, you HATE having anything done to your nose area and will scream with a passion. You’ve spent the last week battling a cold and some thick congestion which means that we, your loving parents, have had to use the bulb syringe to suction out your snot and then have needed to spray saline solution up your nose. Ohhhhh the screeeeeeeams. Now you pull away anytime we try to go near your face, even just to wipe your nose. But you are able to recover quickly and resume putting everything in your mouth as if nothing ever happened.
Your daddy and I think that you’re really starting to understand a lot more when it comes to words and actions. For example, you now respond to your name! Daddy wasn’t sure if it was your name or just the sound of his voice that you were responding to, so he experimented by calling for you with other nicknames, and it wasn’t until he said your actual name that you turned around and smiled at him. You really do know your name! You also seem to be catching on to some of the keywords and baby signs that we use, like “more” and “all done”. I take advantage of this when you’re nursing, so if you get distracted and start looking around the room (as you often do), I simply say, “more?” and then you turn your head back around and continue eating. It’s great. I’ve started using more key phrases with you too, in the hopes that this will increase your understanding of what’s about to happen or what’s expected of you. Like when I feed you in the high chair, you often grab the spoon out of my hand so that you can shove it in your mouth and start chewing on it. Rather than grab it back from you, I’ve started simply placing my hand out and asking, “Can I have it?” and you usually drop the spoon within a second or two of my request. Way to go!
Your greatest adventure between 6 and 7 months was our last-minute trip to Forest Home. Daddy’s high schoolers needed a female counselor, so the day before camp, I decided to step in and accept the challenge. That meant that not only did you get to spend two days and nights atop a forested mountain (hence the camp’s name), you also got to share a room with a bunch of high school girls. Hot stuff! We were able to push the mattress all the way to the wall, so you and I got to share a bottom bunk while the gabby girls tiptoed and whispered and went to bed early for fear of waking you. Way to take charge!
Well, Matthew, this has been quite a month. This post is super long because I just had so much to say about you! Though things are not perfect, and we still have a lot that needs to be figured out so that you are well fed and rested, you sure are a lot of fun. You are a joy and a delight, and I love being greeted by your little face each morning as you coo and smile and announce to the world that it’s time to rise and shine. I still can’t believe how much you have changed and learned in the past month, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what this next month holds.
I’ve always heard that babies get more and more fun with age, but I didn’t really know what that meant. Now that Matthew is six-going-on-seven months old, I totally get it. He is changing so much literally every single day! I didn’t think it was possible to change this rapidly, but he is proving otherwise.
I learned in OT school that there are four ages at which babies typically achieve significant motor milestones in relation to postural control:
3 months (goal-directed movements)
6 months (independent sitting)
9-10 months (fine tuning muscle control)
13-14 months (anticipatory postural control after they’ve been walking for about 6 weeks)
I also learned that, of those four ages, the 6-month-mark involves the most significant transition because the motor cortex of the brain just starts firing like CRAZY! And judging by the way that my 6-month-old is literally learning new motor skills by the hour, I’d say that’s about right!
As you can tell by the title of this post, Matthew is now able to sit up ALL.BY.HIM.SELF! It kind of came out of nowhere, honestly. I was perusing Pinterest last week and saw this video of a therapist showing a parent how to help their baby learn to sit. We had already been helping him sit to interact with various toys and books, but this video did such a good job of explaining all the different components of learning to sit that it inspired me to, first, show it to my husband and then, second, start to more proactively engage Matthew in increasingly challenging sitting activities as he bobbed and swayed. After about 2 days of modeling what the therapist did with the baby in the video, Matthew was able to sit up by himself for anywhere from 5-30 seconds at a time, and it was the coolest thing ever! This video shows that stage.
He was basically at that level when I left for work this morning, and by the time I returned home just 7 short hours later, I found him sitting on a blanket BY HIMSELF while daddy folded laundry a couple feet away from him. What???!!! Since when could you do that???!!!
Somehow words cannot express how happy and proud and excited and giddy I was. I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. And all because my little baby can sit on his bottom. Nothing like the pride and joy of a mama.
It’s funny because, about a week ago, he all of a sudden became very kicky. As if he didn’t already kick his turkey legs all the time, he was now going double time. We could tell his body and his brain were up to something. So not only has he figured out how to sit up, but he is also beginning to figure out how to scoot (both forward and backward), as well as how to activate his tummy muscles so that he can start to push his belly off the ground while in prone. Slow down!!! Who said you have to do this all at once???
Another majorly significant skill that he learned recently was how to transfer an object from one hand to another. We occupational therapists always look for this when we work with babies because this skills marks the beginning of voluntary release. (Nerd alert: when a baby supports the object with his mouth or body or other hand while transferring, that’s called a two-stage transfer,which is where Matthew is at; when he fluidly releases the object into the other hand without additional support, that’s called a one-stage transfer.) I was so nerdy excited that I just had to get it on video, so here it is! (The rattle balls started to get slippery as he drooled on them, so that’s why they kept popping out of his hands.)
As if being able to sit up, scoot around, and transfer objects was enough for the month, Matthew has also figured out how to shift his weight onto one arm while he reaches for an object with the other, all while pushing his belly as high off the ground as he can go.
Additionally, he is currently attempting to figure out how to push to his knees. He squeezes his tummy muscles and pushes with all his might…
throws his hips back and pulls his knees in…
and momentarily shifts his weight backward onto his knees while pushing his belly off the ground.
He has learned all of this and more in less than two weeks’ time. Cowabunga, dude! If all this change happened in just a handful of days, I can’t even imagine where he will be by the time he turns 7 months next week.
